Finn-ally Rian Johnson Shares Why So Much Of John Boyega Was Cut From ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’

One thing that was noticed by fans is how little screen time John Boyega‘s Finn had in ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ compared to ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens‘ and now we’ve learned why. Recently, director Rian Johnson was talking about this, and it appears that many of the scenes Boyega was in were transitional scenes and not moving the plot forward. With how long ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ ended up being, there was a ton that had to be left on the cutting room floor already so these type of moments took a back seat to the action and larger story arcs.

As Johnson explains:

“A lot of the Finn scenes that were cut are connective material. For instance, there’s a scene where he’s on the ship, and BB-8 comes in and shows him… basically, BB-8 shows him a recording he made of Rey saying goodbye to him. That’s when he decides, ‘Oh my God, I’m going to go save Rey.’ In a scene like that, it was totally lovely. But once we realized that we could take it out and the audience would know he’s holding Rey’s beacon, and ‘oh, he’s going to save her,’ and they would make that leap — suddenly, you can’t justify that scene being there.”

With time restraints already working on the film, it makes sense why scenes like this one would get chopped. Not only that, but in some cases they were redundant with what was shown in the longer scenes. On top of that, the director felt that Finn’s story arc could still stand up with some of these being removed:

“I think as opposed to Rey, where somebody like Rey had longer sequences on the island that were with Luke — with Finn, because his was a little more plotty in terms of it, there were more little scenes like that where we were like, ‘Oh, we can do without this, we can do without that’, and have his character arc still hold up.”

We know of a more extended fight between Finn and Captain Phasma being one of the instances where this occurred, but another scene that was cut short was when Rose Tico, DJ, and Finn broke into Supreme Leader Snoke’s ship. Honestly, that one would have likely been more enjoyable for viewers than the extended Casino scene.

Do you agree with having more of Finn’s scenes cut was the right way to go for an already long movie? Share your thoughts below!

Stuart Conover

Stuart Conover is a father, husband, blogger, published author, geek, entrepreneur, editor of Horror Tree, horror fanatic, science fiction junkie, lives in a world of comics, and a casual gamer (all of this when his wife lets him of course.) He fell in love with science fiction and horror at the same time while watching the movie Alien at probably far too young of an age while still being extremely impressionable and has been happily obsessed with both since! Around the same time, he had also developed an unhealthy addiction to comic books that continues to this day!Want to talk about anything geeky? Reach out on Twitter - @StuartConover